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that a little before his death a suppression of urine had be fallen him: though others were of opinion, that his urine was suppressed upon the regurgitation of all the serosity into his lungs. Not the least appearance was there of any stony matter, either in the kidneys or bladder. His bowels were also sound, a little whitish without. His spleen very little, hardly equalling the bigness of one kidney. In short, all his inward parts appeared so healthy, that if he had not changed his diet and air, he might perhaps have lived a good while Jonger.

The cause of his death was imputed chiefly to the change of food and air; forasmuch as coming out of a clear, thin, and free air, he came into the thick air of London; and after a constant, plain, and homély country diet, he was taken into a splendid family, where he fed high, and drank plentifully of the best wines, whereupon the natural functions of the parts of his body were overcharged, his lungs obstructed, and the habit of the whole body quite disordered; upon which there could not but ensue a dissolution.

His brain was sound, entire, and firm; and though he had not the use of his eyes, nor much of his memory, several years before he died, yet he had his hearing and apprehension very well, and was able, even to the hundred and thirtieth year of his age to do any husbandman's work, even threshing of corn.

1769, Jan.

XXXVII. Description of a Stone Eater

MR. URBAN,

SOME years ago we had an account of a Scotch gentleman, whose appetite and digestion became gradually so weak that he could take no other sustenance than the whey of goat's milk; and at length even this becoming too strong for his stomach, he derived his whole nourishment from water only. The truth of this report was generally disbelieved, till the gentleman himself, accompanied by some of his friends, attended a meeting of the Royal Society, and there put the fact so entirely out of question, that a full account thereof was afterwards published in the Philosophical Transactions. What then must your readers think of the following much more extraordinary account inserted in the learned

father PAULIAN'S Dictionnaire Physique, under the article DIGESTION?

Yours, &c.

THE beginning of May, 1760, was brought to Avignon, a true lithophagus or stone-eater. He not only swallowed flints of an inch and a half long, a full inch broad, and half an inch thick; but such stones as he could reduce to powder, such as marble, pebbles, &c. he made up into paste, which was to him a most agreeable and wholesome food. I examined this man with all the attention I possibly could, I found his gullet very large, his teeth exceedingly strong, his saliva very corrosive, and his stomach lower than ordinary, which I imputed to the vast number of flints he had swallowed, being about five and twenty one day with another. Upon interrogating his keeper, he told me the following particulars. "This stone-eater," says he, cc was found three years ago in a northern inhabited island, by some of the crew of a Dutch ship, on Good Friday. Since I have had him, I make him eat raw flesh with his stones; I could never get him to swallow bread. He will drink water, wine, and brandy; which last liquor gives him infinite pleasure. He sleeps at least twelve hours in a day, sitting on the ground with one knee over the other, and his chin resting on his right knee. He smokes almost all the time he is not asleep, or is not eating. The flints he has swallowed he voids somewhat corroded and diminished in weight, the rest of his excrements resemble mortar." The keeper also tells me, that some physicians at Paris got him blooded; that the blood had little or no serum, and in two hours time became as fragile as coral. If this fact be true, it is manifest that the most diluted part of the stony juice must be converted into chyle. This stone-eater, hitherto is unable to pronounce more than a few words, Oui, non, caillou, bon. I shewed him a fly through a microscope: he was astonished at the size of the animal, and could not be induced to examine it. He has been taught to make the sign of the cross, and was baptized some months ago in the church of St. Côme at Paris. The respect he shews to ecclesiastics, and his ready disposition to please them, afforded me the opportunity of satisfying myself as to all these particulars; and I am fully convinced that he is no cheat.

1769, June.

XXXVIII. On the Stature and Figure of Old Persons.

OLD persons are never so tall as they were in their prime; they stoop, and their height is otherwise, as I apprehend, diminished; and from what causes, it may be matter of some curiosity to inquire.

If an aged person, suppose of seventy, sits upon a chair that is too high for him, for any long space of time, and his feet for the time do not easily and fully touch the ground, he will find a pain in his thigh bone, which, I presume, must be occasioned by the weight of his legs and feet drawing it downwards, and pressing it against the edge of the seat or chair. This consequently induces a small degree of curvature in the bone, which, if the same thing be continued or repeated, will still be greater to the diminution of the person's stature; for as the elasticity of the fibres of the bone is, in such old subjects, in a great measure lost, the bone never totally recovers its pristine state. This, I conjecture, may be the reason of thigh bones, both of men and women, being found sometimes, as I have heard, in a state of flexion more than natural.

The flesh of elderly people generally either wastes and shrinks, or it grows pasty, being deprived of its native and juvenile elasticity. But now, in either case, the soles of the feet will of course grow flatter, to the prejudice of the person's height.

These, indeed, are but trifling causes of the decrease of stature, in comparison of what follows: for if the flesh in old subjects is subject to lose its elasticity, the cartilages are much more so. Now, it is a known fact, that people are taller in the morning than at night, owing to the pressure of the upper parts in the day time, and whilst the party is in an upright posture, on the cartilages between the vertebræ of the neck and back; which cartilages, in young subjects, by their spring, resume their tone and former dimensions, by recumbency or the horizontal position of the body during sleep, the incumbent weight or pressure being for that interval, and by that posture, removed; and for this reason, every youthful person is actually tallest in the morning. But this is far from being the case with the aged. The cartilages in them are grown dry and thin, and springless, whereby the stature will perpetually continue at the lowest pitch. And as the interstices of the vertebræ are consequently enlarged, (to say nothing of the relaxed state of the

sinews and ligaments) the head, by its weight, will moreover naturally fall forward, and a bending in the back will ensue, and chiefly in the weaker parts, about the loins and the small of the back. Hence comes in some measure that incurvation so remarkable in old persons, and of which the poets have not failed to take notice; hence Otway makes the Hag or Witch in the Orphan to be

-with age grown double.

And so Sackville, in Higgins's Tales of Princes, p. 263.

And next in order sad old age we found,

His beard all hoare, his eyes hollow and blind,
With drouping chere still poring on the ground.
As on the place where nature him assign'd

To rest.

A weakness in the thorar or chest, by which it becomes unable to support in the best and most upright manner, the weight of the head and parts above, contributes mainly to this apparent incurvation. And this weakness in that part, of which old persons are very sensible, and often will complain of, saying how hollow they find themselves there, with a weariness and a small degree of pain, is owing, I conceive, partly to the relaxation of the tendons of the neck, particularly the aponeurosis, which lets the head drop, as it were, and press the more upon the thorax; and partly to the dead and fixed state, as now they are deprived of their spring, of the cartilages of the ribs, whereby the os ensiforme is but ill supported and fortified against this new and additional weight, yea rather gives way and yields unto it. Whatever is the cause, the os, or cartilago ensiformis certainly does not duly and adequately perform its function in this advanced stage of life.

An anatomist might probably say a great deal more on this subject, and illustrate it far better. To him I shall therefore leave it, (and it certainly deserves his regard) only adding, it would give me pleasure to see it further and more masterly considered.

1771, Aug.

T. Row.

XXXIX. The Cruelty of Collectors of Insects censured.

MR. URBAN,

THE cruelty of anatomists, in their experiments on living animals, is often dreadful to relate, and is already enlarged upon by Essay Writers in their useful miscellanies: but I am not certain whether the entomologist or collector of insects has not hitherto passed without censure, though he practises the most unrelenting cruelty on flies, moths, and spiders: he takes pleasure to impale for days and weeks the papilonaceous race with corking pins, with which his cushion is replete whilst the libellutæ, or dragon flies, are killed by squeezing the thorax, or with the spirit of turpentine, to the no small horror of the humane and benevolent, who are of opinion, that science might be improved, and learning increased without such barbarities; and it may be observed, both science and learning are dearly acquired at the expence of that humanity, which is more necessary than either, in our road through life.

Let me, in a few words, (a multitude are not requisite) inform those gentlemen, they certainly have forgotten, that, in ages long ago, a venerable ancient philosopher, named Pythagoras, prescribed the utmost mercy to inferior animals; they are, perhaps, also not apprized, that the sect of Bramins still reverence his precepts, and literally follow his example. It is recorded in history, that the Athenian court, called the Areopagite, was particularly careful to punish offenders of this kind. Even a child, who, in the wantonness of his recreation, had deprived an innocent bird of its sight, was condemned by one of these Grecian magistrates, and suffered a very severe punishment.

Of the fair sex, I would willingly hope, there are but few of those cruel naturalists; at least I do not recollect but one in the circle of my observation, nor do I wish the number may increase. Your present correspondent, Mr. Urban, (like a person who reveres the Eastern Shastah) has formed a resolution to deprive of life, not even one of those minutiae of the creation. The poor beetle from me shall feel no corporal sufferance: the butterfly, unmolested by my hand, may range from flower to flower: the gnat may deposit his eggs, and the spider renew his web, without sustaining any injury.

It is my firm opinion, that we have no unlimited dominion over the insect tribe; and though man may be considered as the delegate of heaven, over the inferior creatures, he is

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